Singapore – Integral Ad Science (IAS) has announced the launch of IAS Curation with Google Ad Manager. IAS will now offer programmatic buyers a deal-based enrichment pathway designed to curate inventory at the source that meets the benchmarks for advertisers across context, brand safety and viewability while driving better performance, at scale. 

IAS Curation empowers advertisers with actionable data to activate avoidance and contextual targeting strategies across media buys at scale for Google Ad Manager. To maximise brand suitability, advertisers are able to consolidate bidding on high quality inventory and precisely target contextually relevant content to drive efficiency for their ad buys. 

IAS’s predictive science pre-screens pages and categorises them, enabling brands to seamlessly identify inventory most desirable while avoiding content that is unsuitable. 

With IAS Curation, advertisers running programmatic campaigns can now incorporate IAS enrichment to tailor supply before it reaches their buying platform. Moreover, IAS’s natural language processing-powered contextual classification enables advertisers to target only relevant, quality content so advertisers can avoid content their brand does not align with. 

Lastly, with contextual avoidance, brand safety & suitability, and MFA filtration available before it reaches a bidder, advertisers can reduce waste and maximise ROI using AI-driven measurement & optimisation.

Srishti Gupta, chief product officer at IAS, said, “Brand suitability and contextual relevance are top priorities for programmatic buyers who are looking to avoid wasting ad spend on poor quality inventory such as MFA or ad clutter. IAS Curation gives programmatic buyers on Google Ad Manager a way to elevate their supply strategy and efficiently maximise returns on their media investments through AI-driven optimisation.”

The Philippines –  Customer engagement platform MoEngage announced today the launch of four new solutions targeted at brands in the SEA region.  ‘MoEngage Inform’, ‘Web Personalisation’, ‘Google Ads Integration’, and ‘App Marketplace’ are now added to the platform’s product line-up. 

The MoEngage Inform aims to make brands’ transactional alert management seamless so they can focus more on delivering cohesive and time-sensitive messages to their consumers. Meanwhile, the personalisation suite is expected to help brands personalise their website with a visual, drag-and-drop builder, without a line of code by tapping into AI automation and actionable insights.

Moreover, the Google Ads Network Integration aims to enable marketers to acquire customers and re-engage existing customers on the world’s largest ad network, based on behaviour. This will also help brands reach out to selected cohorts and match their interests across Google Search, Google Shopping, Gmail, YouTube, and the extended Google Ad Network.

Lastly, MoEngage’s App Marketplace is for marketing, growth, and product teams to discover the right set of platforms and integrations that fits their needs. This aims to help brands build a modern tech stack and ramp up their customer engagement efforts.

“As organizations grow, their customer engagement needs become more complex. With the recent product launches, MoEngage aims to empower product, marketing, and growth teams to build memorable experiences and drive impact on LTV and customer retention,” said Raviteja Dodda, CEO and co-founder of MoEngage.

MoEngage has been in the customer engagement space since 2014, partnering with brands like WhatsApp, Microsoft, and theAsianparent.

Sydney, Australia – Digital marketing company Delacon has integrated its call tracking solution into Google Ads, enabling marketers to more effectively attribute campaign performance.

Delacon now surfaces in all Google Ads accounts, providing natively integrated call tracking data to its clients and others wanting to record and monitor call extensions, for a fuller understanding of the effectiveness of search campaigns.

The call tracking integration works with its Interactive Voice Response (IVR) feature – which captures the phone menu options pressed by a caller – provides a more granular layer of call attribution data.

“When a customer calls directly from a Google ad, marketers can see which keyword groups, ads and campaigns drove the engagement, all reported in real time. Delacon’s call tracking solution also monitors time, date, length and result of calls; geographical location; number of calls per web source; online browsing activity in the lead up to the call; campaign ID and the call outcome,” Delacon said in a statement.

Michael Center, CEO at Delacon, said, “Previously marketers would need to specify which phone number belonged to which campaign to track any phone calls made directly from a campaign ad. Now, as long as a phone number is attached to a Google Ad, call tracking data can drive additional value for businesses. This integration increases call tracking accuracy and gives greater visibility on calculating cost per lead and cost per acquisition, which in turn improves campaign optimisation and drives increased return on investment.”

He added, “As a leading global provider of feature-rich call analytics, we continue to identify new ways to innovate our offering. Partnering as a Google Analytics Certified Partner for this latest integration and becoming the first in Asia Pacific to deploy our platform across Google Ads, is recognition of our expertise and the talent within the team.”

Singapore ZALORA, Asian e-commerce fashion brand, announced its partnership with Google to launch Google Ads with ZALORA, a marketing solution that provides brands with a simpler way to drive online sales and performance.

Google Ads with ZALORA will help in the brand growth of businesses by providing sophisticated campaign support connecting them with customers while delivering tools that measure and optimize marketing campaigns.

Tejas Kirodiwal, head of growth at ZALORA, commented on the collaboration, saying that this partnership with Google aligns with ZALORA’s commitment to driving the growth of Asia’s e-commerce industry as it aims to boost brand promotion and success in a competitive online retail landscape.

“As e-commerce becomes increasingly important, Google Ads with ZALORA will work in conjunction with our in-depth industry expertise and other platform service offerings, such as retail intelligence and analytics solution TRENDER, a Data by GFG product, to run targeted and data-driven campaigns that meet business objectives,” Kirodiwal said.

The partnership comes after a string of successful pilot tests conducted during the second half of 2021. 

According to ZALORA, global fashion brand H&M ran shopping campaigns over a 7-week period within Malaysia and showed that Google Ads with ZALORA was effective in driving greater discoverability and traffic for H&M products on ZALORA’s e-commerce site, resulting in a strong return on advertising spend of 6.1x.

Jerome Hamlin, head of industry E-Commerce at Google, commented on the partnership, saying, “This extends on the ongoing efforts between Google and ZALORA to drive digitalisation in businesses. Southeast Asia is entering its ‘digital decade’ with the internet playing an integral part in people’s everyday lives. We’re excited to launch Google Ads with ZALORA to help accelerate e-commerce growth across the region and support brands to tap into the growing pool of digital shoppers.”

This January, ZALORA Malaysia announced their collaboration with conversational AI company Bray Leino Splash to enhance the customer experience of their Community Influencer Program.

Singapore – Essence, a global data and measurement-driven media agency, has announced the launch of Essence Impact, a pro bono initiative that helps non-profit organizations raise greater awareness, attract more donations and recruit new volunteers via their websites to support their causes and effect accelerated change.

Essence Impact was launched in the mid of the COVID-19 pandemic to aid non-profit organizations in their digital transformation, as many historically depended on tentpole physical fundraising events for their operational needs.

Included in the initiative is eligibility for charities for Google Ad Grants which provides up to US$10,000 per month of in-kind search advertising. The agency will also help the organizations in setting up, managing, and optimizing their advertising campaigns to drive traffic to their websites. The Essence team comprises diverse employees who volunteer and contribute to the initiative in roles including business development, client services, marketing, media activation and project management.

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(Left) Matt Holland, Associate Vice President, Client Services, APAC at Essence; (Right) Monica Bhatia, Senior Vice President, Client Partner, APAC and Managing Director, Singapore at Essence

For Monica Bhatia, senior vice President and client partner for APAC and managing director for Singapore at Essence, they believe in using their abilities for social good and that we have a responsibility to make the world a better place, which falls under Essence’s mission to make brands more valuable to the world.

“With Google Ad Grants and Essence Impact, we are delighted to help non-profits transform and accelerate their efforts in the pandemic and beyond, while providing our teams with opportunities to learn new skills and give back to society,” Bhatia stated.

Meanwhile, Matt Holland, associate vice president of client services for APAC at Essence, who leads Essence Impact in the region, said, “It has been challenging times for charities amid COVID-19 and its resulting lockdown restrictions, as the organizations have not been able to carry out their usual fundraising events. Essence Impact is supporting charities to help drive increased awareness, donors and volunteers online, as the organizations pivot their activities to be more digitally-led.”

Essence aims to roll out Essence Impact across APAC and globally via its network of offices.